RDS MariaDB free tier

Question

Hi there, I am new to AWS and I am evaluating it for publishing a web application that is still under development.
I have set up a MariaDB database and in 83 hours of instance running with actual usage below 24h and from a single user, I've received a bill over $100.
Clearly, I will not be able to afford the cost of this database whenever I will be ready to publish my website.

I wanted to understand if anyone can help me with how to set up a cost-effective database.
I thought I could take advantage of Free Tier during this trial period, I understand Free tier covers instance running time and storage space, but at this stage, I am unsure if it also provides transactions allowance.

Any support will be greatly appreciated.

Answer

The RDS Free Tier covers specific instance types and sizes and up to a specified amount of storage. If your usage is not in line with those, then you will get charged. Also, the RDS Free Tier is only for the first 12 months of your account [1].

To see what your usage is, you can see this on the RDS Service Dashboard.

Alternatively, you can see this in Cost Explorer. (Instructions [2] for enabling Cost Explorer, free with default settings). Filter (right panel) Service for RDS and Group By (top bar) for Usage Type should tell you what instances you are running and how much the storage and instances are costing you.

[1] https://aws.amazon.com/rds/free/

[2] https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cost-management/latest/userguide/ce-enable.html

Answer

Hi, according to the wording on the [AWS Free Tier](https://aws.amazon.com/free/?all-free-tier.sort-by=item.additionalFields.SortRank&all-free-tier.sort-order=asc&awsf.Free%20Tier%20Types=*all&awsf.Free%20Tier%20Categories=categories%23databases) page, for RDS you are entitled to:

*750 hours of Amazon RDS Single-AZ db.t2.micro, db.t3.micro, and db.t4g.micro Instances usage running MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL databases each month. 20 GB of General Purpose (SSD) database storage*

It may be that you've used an instance type other than those listed, you've enabled multi-AZ or exceeded the 20GB storage limit.

RDS MariaDB free tier

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